Planes taxi to a runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. / 2008 file photo by Mark Lennihan, AP

by Nancy Trejos, USA TODAY

by Nancy Trejos, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Airlines had fewer lengthy tarmac delays last year than they did in 2011, almost two years after the federal government began curbing the practice.

New data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics showed that there were 42 tarmac delays of longer than three hours on domestic flights in 2012, down from 50 in 2011.

Airlines have been forbidden from keeping passengers on planes on tarmacs for more than three hours on domestic flights without giving them the option of disembarking since April 2010. Exceptions are allowed if the situation involves a safety, security or air-traffic control-related issue.

Airlines that violate the rule could be forced to pay up to $27,500 per passenger. The Department of Transportation has penalized a handful of airlines, though none to the maximum extent.

Between May 2009 and April 2010, the carriers had 693 tarmac delays of more than three hours. Since August 2011, U.S. and foreign airlines operating international flights at U.S. airports have had to operate under a four-hour tarmac delay limit.

That said, in December, passengers on 16 flights were stuck on tarmacs for at least three hours on domestic flights Christmas Day, making for one of the worst situations since the federal government starting curbing the practice. Fourteen of those domestic delays took place on Dec. 25 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport during a snow and ice storm. There was one tarmac delay of more than four hours on an international flight.

The department is investigating the delays.

The nation's largest 15 airlines that report performance to the department fared well in other areas last year.

They had their lowest rate of mishandled baggage since they began reporting such data in September 1987. There were 3.09 reports of mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers, down from 3.35 in 2011.

They were also on time 81.85% of the time in 2012, the third best performance in the 18 years the department has collected comparable data.

Airlines canceled 1.29% of flights during the year, the second lowest rate for the past 18 years.

"This remarkable decrease in flight delays, tarmac incidents, cancellations and mishandled bags is a tribute both to the hard work of the airlines and the Department of Transportation's oversight of the aviation industry," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a written statement. "We will continue to work with the carriers to make air travel more convenient and hassle-free for consumers."

Robert Mann, president of airline consulting company R.W. Mann & Co., says that the tarmac rule is not necessarily a good thing because it's resulted in "pre-emptive cancellations."

But, he says, airlines are performing better in general because they are running fewer flights thanks to streamlined schedules as well as mergers.

"We are seeing much cleaner operations because they all have to schedule less," he says. "Consolidation means people don't have to out-schedule each other again. That mutually destructive behavior resulted in the hideous delays of the '80s and '90s."

The carriers did bump more passengers in 2012 than they did the previous year, up from a rate of 0.77 per 10,000 passengers in 2011 to 0.99 in 2012. For the fourth quarter of last year, airlines posted a bumping rate of 1.00 per 10,000 passengers, up from the 0.65 rate for the fourth quarter of 2011.

In December, airlines were on time 76.6% of the time, down from both December 2011's 84.4% rate and November 2012's 85.7%.

The most on-time airlines in December were Hawaiian, Delta and Alaska. The least on-time were Frontier, JetBlue and ExpressJet.

Consumer complaints against U.S. airlines were also up, from 568 in December 2011 to 639 in December 2012.